DNV GL STRATEGIC RESEARCH & INNOVATION

POSITION PAPER 6-2014

BEYOND CONDITION
MONITORING IN THE
MARITIME INDUSTRY

SAFER, SMARTER, GREENER

2 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Smart organizations know they can no longer afford to see maintenance as just an expense.
Rather, maintenance must be integrated within the business cycle in order to guarantee
predictability, growth and increase the overall quality of operations. Moving from a regime of
scheduled rule-based maintenance via on-condition maintenance and ultimately to a data-driven
risk-based regime can lead to more accurate and timely maintenance tasks. This smarter view of
maintenance allows for achieving many practical advantages leading to lower costs and increased
safety and availability of ship systems.

Contact Details:
knut.erik.knutsen@dnvgl.com

Prepared by:
Knut Erik Knutsen, Senior Researcher
Gabriele Manno, Senior Researcher
Bjørn Johan Vartdal, Senior Principal Engineer
 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 3

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION 4

CONDITION MONITORING 6
The basic principle for applying Condition monitoring 7
Methods for condition monitoring 9

A STORY OF CONDITION MONITORING IMPLEMENTATION

FROM THE AIR TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY 16

STATUS OF CONDITION MONITORING WITHIN SHIPPING 20

What is lacking as compared with aviation 21
Challenges and potential benefits 22

THE WAY FORWARD 26

Enabling Technologies 26
The stages of implementation 27
Real-time risk based approaches 28
New business opportunities 30

CONCLUSIONS 33

BIBLIOGRAPHY 35
4 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
INTRODUCTION
In the past 70 years expectations associated with
maintenance have grown considerably. Maintenance
has evolved from a reactive process, performed
after a functional failure, to a preventive activity
where items are overhauled or discarded according
to a time-schedule. Preventive maintenance is
based on the assumption that a component has a
defined lifetime, after which its failure rate increases.
However, estimates of lifetime often have large
uncertainties. Hence, scheduled maintenance is
often performed too early or too late, resulting either
in high costs due to unnecessary replacements
or functional failures, respectively. Even worse,
a component that cannot be inspected from the
outside is often disassembled and inspected on
schedule, with the risk of introducing faults during
inspection or re-assembly, thereby leading to failure
shortly afterwards. In other words, infant mortality
is sometimes introduced to components in mid-life
due to invasive inspection or calendar maintenance.
In order to reduce the uncertainty resulting
from preventive maintenance, new approaches,
based on the assessment of asset condition, have
emerged. These approaches can be distinguished
from previous ones due to their predictive nature
(Figure 1). These developments track back to
the 1960s, when it was discovered that a large
percentage of failures in complex aircraft were not
age-related, but random, and therefore were not
adequately addressed by preventive (scheduled)
maintenance. In order to address these failures
regular inspections, and later continuous monitoring
using sensors, were used to determine if a failure
was about to happen. This led to the development
of a new maintenance framework called Reliability
Centered Maintenance (RCM) [1], which comprises
the adoption of condition monitoring (CM) as one
of the means by which safety and availability can be
increased in a cost-effective manner.
This position paper aims to introduce the principles
associated with the state of the art in condition
monitoring for predictive maintenance and to
discuss the potential benefits of introducing new
maintenance strategies into the shipping industry,
based on the experiences in the aviation industry.
Possible barriers to implementation in the shipping
industry are reviewed and options on how these
barriers may be overcome are suggested. The
possible future impact on the shipping industry,
resulting from full-scale implementation of such
maintenance strategies, is also discussed.
 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 5

Predictive Maintenance

Preventive Maintenance

Run to Failure

1950 1980 2010

Figure 1.  Evolution of Maintenance practices.

6 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

CONDITION MONITORING
The motivation for introducing condition monitoring
is to increase the overall safety level in order to
reduce the risk of loss of life and property, whilst also
minimizing the costs associated with maintenance
of the component or system being monitored. This
can be achieved through increased reliability of the
component or system being monitored and reduced
consequences of failures. Reliability is improved by
close monitoring of possible failure mechanisms and
taking decisive actions to avoid the development of
failure mechanisms through operational measures
in the short-term and through maintenance in the
long-term. The failure mechanisms may therefore
not be able to develop, leading to the avoidance of
a potential breakdown of the component or system
(Figure 2).

Smooth
First sign of trouble
operation
Performance

Time to failure

Warning time

time Failed

Figure 2.  The basic concept of condition monitoring.


Age related = 11%
Bathtub = 4%
Wear out = 2%
Failure rate
Fatigue = 5%
time
Figure 3.  The 6 possible failure rates patterns.
THE BASIC PRINCIPLE FOR APPLYING
CONDITION MONITORING
Nowlan and Heap [1] discovered that traditional
preventive maintenance was insufficient to address
random failures. They analysed failures of equipment
installed on board aircraft and discovered that
failures of equipment fall into one of six pattern
groups, each of which has a different curve pattern
characteristic of the failure rate vs. age of the
equipment (Figure 3).
The real surprise was the large proportion of failures,
89%, that were not age-related, and therefore would
not be addressed by the traditional preventive
maintenance techniques. This proportion has been
shown to be similar for marine vessels, where the
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 7
Random = 89%
Break in period= 7%
Random = 14%
Infant mortality = 68%
relative number of random failures was slightly lower,
77% according to the MSP study (1982) by the US
Navy and 71% according to the SUBMEPP study
(2001) on US Navy submarines [2]. The increase in
age-related failure is mainly attributed to greater
degradation by corrosion when components are in
a saline environment. However, the failure patterns
are still dominated by random failures, and these can
only be addressed by detecting them before they
occur; that is, by adopting a predictive maintenance
strategy.
It is assumed that some physical change occurs
in the component or system before a failure
mode occurs. Assuming that such a change can
be detected using the appropriate sensor(s) and
8 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

SYSTEM SENSE & PROCESS

Monitoring signals Diagnostics Prognostics

MAINTAIN ANALYZE

Figure 4.  High level representation of a condition based maintenance framework.

Model of the system

Operating system (physical behaviour)

modelling

Observations Predicitons
sense simulate

COMPARE

Analyze
Diagnostics Prognostics

Correct / Maintain Update

Figure 5.  High level representation of a Model-based condition monitoring maintenance framework.

data collection interval, measurement data can
be recorded and stored for real-time or historical
data analysis to uncover impending faults or to
correlate previous failures with changes in recorded
measurement data.
METHODS FOR CONDITION MONITORING
Condition monitoring is the process of monitoring a
set of parameters of condition in a system in order
to identify a significant change that is indicative of
a developing fault. The analysis of measured data
consists of a pre-processing step that validates
sensor output and extracts features like temperature
gradients and vibration modes. Using the extracted
features, a diagnostics algorithm can be used to
determine the health state of the component or
system. If an impending failure is detected, the
operator is alerted (Figure 4). Diagnostics and
prognostics algorithms for implementing a condition
monitoring system are based on one of two main
approaches: a model-based (first principles physical
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 9
model) approach or a data-driven (statistical and
data-mining) approach [3].
Model based diagnostics
The model-based approach requires detailed
knowledge of the physics and function of the
component or system, and these may not be readily
available. The physical degradation mechanisms,
such as crack propagation and spall growth, can
be modelled and the models updated using
measurement data. Valuable insights into failure
modes can be obtained through simulations of the
system, by integrating material-level, component-
level and system-level models, and these may also
be used to estimate how the component and system
performance is affected by degradation. Based
on comparison of the simulation and the actual
measurements from the physical component, it may
be possible to diagnose the component by altering
the model until correspondence between the model
and the measurements is achieved. This approach
does not require large amounts of previous failure
10 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

Historical operations Actual operation system

Sense & collect Sense

Database New
observations

collect

Data Base

Model of the system

(statistical, regressive, clustering...)

Train & update Inputs to run

the model the model

Analyze
Diagnostics Prognostics
Collect Correct / Maintain

Figure 6.  High level representation of a data-driven condition based maintenance framework.

data to identify an imminent failure, and therefore
may be most suitable for newly developed
equipment with good computer models and limited
failure statistics (Figure 5).
Data-driven diagnostics
The data-driven approach utilizes previous failure
data and correlates measured condition data
with known failures using pattern recognition
techniques like clustering and neural networks.
One substantial advantage compared with the
model-based approach is that there is less need
for detailed physical knowledge of the monitored
components. However, detailed statistics and
measurements related to previous failures are
necessary, and therefore this approach may be most
suitable for legacy equipment with good statistical
data on failures, with no need for developing a
model of the physics. A disadvantage compared
with physical model-based approaches is that the
statistical models assume an underlying stability in
the monitored system. Changes in load conditions or
operating profiles may lead to inaccuracies because
historical data is relied upon to diagnose a fault
(Figure 6).

Prognostics
Prognostics extend the results of diagnostics by
estimating the future behaviour of systems. Based
on the knowledge of the current health state,
prognostics provide predictions of the future health
state and determine the remaining useful life (RUL)
of the component or system. As with diagnostics,
both model-based and data-driven approaches may
be implemented. Model-based prognostics may take
into account physical degradation mechanisms like
crack propagation or fatigue. However, these models
are uncertain, and this uncertainty must be taken into
account in the prognostics algorithm. The advantage
is that the prognosis made is ‘knowledge-rich’,
meaning that is based on actual physical changes
that can be traced to a specific part or region of the
component. Data-driven prognostics make use of
historical run-to-failure data if available. The historical
data are used to train a prognostic algorithm, e.g.
artificial neural networks, support vector machines or
hidden Markov models. The measurement data from
the component in service is then fed to the trained
algorithm that takes the currently determined health
state of the component and projects the health
state into the future. When the projected health
state degrades beyond a pre-determined threshold,
the component is considered to have failed, and
the estimated time until failure is the RUL. Having
a reliable RUL of each component is extremely
valuable for maintenance planning as maintenance
intervals can be extended and several maintenance
tasks can be combined to reduce downtime.
Component
Failure Modes
Predict
and Criticality
?
Identification
Prevent
?
Run to Failure
?
Redesign
Figure 7.  Simplified RCM decision logic.
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 11
A closer look at Reliability Centered Maintenance
Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is a task-
oriented programme where tasks are selected for
each functional failure or failure mode. Tasks are
selected based on several criteria like difficulty and
cost, where simple and cheap tasks are preferable,
and must also satisfy the criteria of applicability and
effectiveness. The consequences of failure must
also be considered when choosing the task or tasks.
There are five different types of consequences to
consider: safety, operational, economic, hidden
safety, and hidden non-safety. Logic diagrams
are used to determine the most appropriate task
based on these criteria. If a failure can be predicted
and prevented using condition monitoring of the
component, and this improves safety and/or cost-
efficiency, then condition monitoring should be
applied. Ultimately, if no effective maintenance
action can be found, redesign of the component or
system must be considered (Figure 7).
Condition monitoring and on-condition maintenance
is a central part of RCM. However, within the
RCM framework further improvements to safety,
availability and costs can be achieved, as it takes a
systematic approach to finding the most efficient
solution. The most safety-critical and cost-effective
measures receive most attention, while least critical
components can be subject to reactive maintenance
(run-to-failure).
Y
On condition
Y
Scheduled
Y
Unplanned
12 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

A STORY OF CONDITION
MONITORING IMPLEMENTATION
FROM THE AIR
TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY

Passengers carried [Millions]

3000 3000

2500 2500
Fatalities/year

2000 2000

1500 Fatalities/year
1500
moving average (bold)
1000 1000
Passengers carried
500 exp. fit (bold) 500
MSG-1 MSG-2 MSG-3
0
1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

Figure 8.  Fatalities per year in passenger aircraft (left axis), and passenger carried (right axis).
Data from the World Bank [4], ACRO [5].

In the 1960s, it was discovered that a large
percentage of failures for complex aircraft were not
age-related, but random, and therefore were not
adequately addressed by preventive (scheduled)
maintenance. This led to the development of a new
maintenance strategy called Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM) [1]. RCM is a process for
3000
determining a maintenance strategy that takes into
account safety, operational benefitShip
(availability),
years
2500
and economy. RCM advocates the implementation
of a predictive maintenance scheme in which the
Fatalities/year
condition of in-service equipment is monitored
in order to predict when maintenance should be
performed.
Figure 8 gives an indication of the effect of these
developments. The figure shows the number of
lives lost per passenger carried on aircraft. The total
number of lives lost in passenger aircraft per year 7000
peaked between 1970 and 1980 and has been
more than halved since then, while the number of6500
passengers has more than tripled.

2000 6000
Ship yearss

1500 5500

1000 5000
Fatalities/year
500 4500
moving average (bold)

In the time-period before the peak in lives lost, the
maintenance paradigm was one of performing
maintenance on hard-time (running hours) or
calendar schedule. In an attempt to increase
reliability, maintenance intervals were shortened,
but with little or no effect. In some cases, the
only reported effect was one of increased infant
mortality of the components in question. The
findings of Nowlan and Heap, based on failure
statistics collected by United Airlines prior to 1968,
indicated that only about 11% of failures were
age-related, and this discovery led to a shift in
the maintenance paradigm towards on-condition
maintenance. In 1968, MSG-1 (Maintenance steering
group 1) was introduced, and was followed up
later with MSG-2 and MSG-3 [4]. A central theme
in the MSG documents is that when hard-time or
scheduled maintenance is not relevant, maintenance
is performed on-condition, as determined by
inspection or condition monitoring based on sensor
measurements.
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 13
As seen in Figure 8, implementation of MSG-1, 2
and 3 maintenance strategies occurred a few years
before the flattening and fall in the number of lives
lost in passenger aviation. This indicates strongly that
the new maintenance regime has had a profound
impact on the safety of passengers in aviation.
However, it is important to note that the effect did not
occur immediately. A time-lag of 5-10 years elapsed
between the publication of these documents and the
effect on safety. Such a time-lag is to be expected
due to the major changes in organization and culture
that are needed for a paradigm shift from scheduled
maintenance to condition-based maintenance. In
addition, the effectiveness of the methodology will
depend on the accumulated amount of data, as this
provides the basis for the statistics-based diagnostics
and the means for continuously refining the tools of
model-based diagnostics. A time-lag is therefore to
be expected due to the time taken to establish the
methodology.
14 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

Mechanical Dispatch Reliability

U.S Operators of Boeing Commercial Transports
99.5

99.0

98.5
Fatalities/year

98.0

97.5

97.0

96.5

96.0
1

9
198

198

198

198

198

199

199

199

199

199

200

200

200

200

200
Source: Boeing

Figure 10.  Mechanical dispatch reliability for U.S. operated Boeing commercial aircrafts [8].

Among aircraft of this time are the two large
passenger carriers, Douglas DC-8 and Boeing
747. The DC-8 was put into service using the
old maintenance paradigm of hard-time and
scheduled maintenance, while the 747 maintenance
programme was the first to apply on-condition
maintenance tasks according to RCM principles. On
the DC-8, there were 339 scheduled component
replacement tasks, while there were only 8 such
tasks on the 747. This led to a massive reduction
in maintenance labour costs and a simultaneous
increase in reliability. Figure 9 illustrates the shift
towards component condition monitoring in the air
transportation industry.
this period, this is remarkable. Despite this, reliability
and availability have increased and there have been
excellent improvements in safety. Moreover, cost
of maintenance per flight hour has been relatively
constant, with some variations, since the introduction
of the RCM framework in the air transportation
industry [7] [8].
100 %
75 %

50 %
For passenger aircraft, unplanned repair or
maintenance incurs a high cost, due also to loss of
25 %
income. When an aircraft is grounded, passengers
experience lower quality of service due to delays and 0%
cancellations. A common measure of the availability 1964 1969 1987
of commercial aircraft is the dispatch reliability, Condition monitoring
meaning the percentage of flights that depart
On condition
on schedule. For Boeing commercial aircraft, the
Hard time
dispatch reliability has been increasing from 97.25%
in 1981 to 98.9% in 2009 (Figure 10). Considering
the introduction of several new technologies during
Figure 9.  Evolution of component
maintenance policy for aircraft [8].
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 15
16 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
STATUS OF CONDITION
MONITORING WITHIN SHIPPING
The current level of RCM and condition monitoring
within shipping is very variable and depends on
ship type, age and components. The monitoring
mostly takes place at the component level and the
sophistication is dependent on the component
maker. Standard sensors measuring quantities such
as temperature, pressure, vibration and strain are
normally used, but research into new sensor types
for detection of failure modes is also being carried
out. Main engines are normally the components
with the most sensors and sophisticated monitoring
systems, due to the risks associated with main engine
failures. Damage statistics show that the main engine
is the single component responsible for most serious
damages on ships [10]. Condition monitoring has
also been expanded to other components in the
propulsion system, such as gears, bearings, and
propellers. In addition, critical auxiliary components
and systems are subject to sensor-based monitoring.
The requirement and sophistication of monitoring
depend on the criticality of the component with
respect to the safety and performance of the ship.
Sensor-based monitoring is also carried out for
the ship hull. This type of monitoring typically
monitors hull girder stresses by means of strain
gauges and motion sensors, but can also account
for other phenomena affecting the hull integrity and
performance.
For the components, condition monitoring is
normally facilitated by the component maker.
For a ship with components from many different
makers, there may be a variety of uncoordinated
monitoring systems. This increases the complexity
for the operator and fails to capture the systems’
perspective for a set of integrated or interdependent
components. Some dedicated providers of condition
monitoring systems for components and systems are
starting to emerge, but the ability of such companies
to provide adequate monitoring of proprietary
components may be limited by the complexity of
retrofitting sensors to the component and the legal
implications of doing so.
In most cases, the processing of monitored data
is carried out on the ships themselves, by means
of manual monitoring of alarms and trends, but
in some cases some simple automated data
diagnostics and prognostic routines are built into
the onboard systems. Data from such systems
are commonly transferred to shore, manually or
via mail, on a regular basis for further processing.
However, systems are gradually being introduced
that allow for remote monitoring and processing
through the transmission of sensor data to shore.
The data can then be handled by the ship owner
and/or the component maker, or, alternatively, a
condition monitoring service provider. The time-
 1

2
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 17

3000 7000
Ship years
2500 6500
Fatalities/year

2000 6000

Ship yearss
1500 5500

1000 5000
Fatalities/year
500 4500
moving average (bold)
0 4000
1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010
Figure 11.  Fatalities per year in passenger ships (left axis), and ship-years (right axis). Data from IHS Fairplay database (ship-
types A32, A36 and A37) [11].

lag between the signal measured by the sensors
and the diagnostics carried out by an operator or
automated diagnostics routine will determine the
applicability and quality of the condition monitoring.
The advantage of sending raw or processed data
to shore real-time is that experts or computationally
intensive diagnostics routines may be used to
process the data and give adequate feedback to
the ship, such as advice on operational measures or
corrective actions required in time to prevent failures.
The quality of the diagnostics and prognostics will be
dependent on experience data or simulation models
that are probably too computationally expensive to
be run on board.
WHAT IS LACKING AS COMPARED
WITH AVIATION
As discussed in the previous section, the introduction
of condition-based maintenance has had a
tremendous impact on aircraft safety, with the risk of
fatalities greatly reduced. In shipping, the picture is
somewhat different.
small increase recently. This means that the safety of
passenger ships improved until about 2005, and has
since become worse. Thus, compared with aviation,
safety development in shipping is not nearly as
positive. Since maintenance procedures in shipping
have not undergone the same developments as in
aviation, this may be a contributing cause. Although
condition-based maintenance is becoming more
commonplace, maintenance in shipping generally
follows a preventive or scheduled maintenance
system, often called Planned Maintenance System
(PMS), which may or may not include a condition
monitoring scheme. According to Ref [12] only 17%
of classed ships operate with an approved PMS, and
only 12% of these use condition monitoring, leaving
~2% of classed ships with a condition monitoring
scheme in place.

Looking at the fatalities/year and ship years for

passenger ships as shown in Figure 11, the number
of ship years has increased almost linearly since
1980 [11]. However, the number of fatalities over
this period has remained almost constant, with a
18 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL BENEFITS
A RCM approach with a predictive maintenance
scheme has been adopted and further developed
within several industries, but adoption of these
methodologies within shipping has been sluggish.
Several challenges may explain the slow take-up
of this approach in the maritime industry. However,
smart organizations know that they can no longer
afford to see maintenance as just an expense. Rather,
maintenance must be integrated within the business
cycle in order to guarantee predictability and growth
and to increase the overall quality of operations.
This smarter view of maintenance enables the
achievement of many practical advantages, leading
to lower costs and increased safety and availability of
ship systems.
Challenges
The correct adoption of these new technologies
requires a big change undertaking in management,
comprising the adoption and the integration of new
technologies within the business cycle. It involves
a change in the culture of an organization, and
includes the development of trust and belief in a
black box, as well as the acceptance of shortcomings
such as errors.
The implementation of new technologies requires
a strong knowledge base about ship functions,
systems and components; a knowledge that
can be brought into operations only through a
structured and collaborative design phase where
the maintainability of the asset is taken into account.
Only in this way is it possible to address effectively
the monitoring and maintainability of a ship.
Moreover, an increase in the number of equipment
items being monitored and poor system control
and integration could lead to a greater workload on
operators and introduce more training requirements.
The current competences and their organization in
the industry today will not be sufficient for dealing
with the new complexity of systems. Furthermore,
the component focus has been very strong in
the shipping industry, while the introduction of
increasingly more complex systems necessitates
increased attention to the effects arising from
interacting and interdependent components.
Appropriate software and new standards must
be developed to ensure the control of these
interconnected systems and the handling of the
large volumes of data that will be generated.
Software is subjected to continuous updates that
could influence interconnected systems and can
have bugs that manifest only on-demand. Data issues
will be related to their maintainability, accessibility,
security, trustworthiness, quality, and many more
factors.
In order for proper diagnosis of issues based on
the monitored signals to take place, a database of
monitored data and events is required to which
statistical methods can be applied. In comparison
with aircraft, which are produced in series of
hundreds or even thousands and mostly using
the same components, ships are often purpose-
designed and unique, or they are produced in series
of 2-10. Therefore, failures and measurement data
in the airline industry accumulate more rapidly to
form a comprehensive database that can be utilized
for data-driven diagnostics and prognostics. In
shipping, such databases of time series data are
currently scattered and generic methodologies
for the purpose of diagnostics of various systems
and components are scarce and incomplete with
respect to description of failure modes. Model-
based diagnostics and prognostics are also largely
unchartered territory in the maritime industry.
However, the quality of the condition monitoring
depends on the existence of large amounts of
reliable data collected over time, as well as the
availability of detailed simulation models allowing for
model-based methodologies. In order to accumulate
such data, access to many ships with detailed
failure statistics and high quality measurements is
necessary. In general, small or medium-sized ship-
owners may not have sufficient volume to attain this
amount of data, and this represents a challenge
for ship-owners who would like to implement a
condition monitoring system. On the other hand,
many ships, although not in themselves identical,
use many identical components. Hence, it should
be possible to build comprehensive databases
if these data could be shared between different
stakeholders.
Another barrier to implementation of effective
condition monitoring of systems could therefore
be issues relating to sharing of proprietary data.
Ship-owners could facilitate this on their own ships
by combining data from various sources as they have
ownership of these data, but most shipowners do
not have the in-house competence or resources to
implement an effective condition monitoring system.
A major barrier to real-time remote condition
monitoring has been the ship to shore data transfer
capabilities. In shipping today, the Inmarsat-4

satellites provide the Fleet Broadband service
with a symmetrical bandwidth of up to 432 kbps.
The global satellite data bandwidth is, however,
increasing steadily, and in 2013 and 2014 Inmarsat
will launch three data transfer satellites (Inmarsat-5)
and create a service called Global Xpress® that
will offer global coverage, starting in late 2014 and
offering a bandwidth of 50 Mbps down and 5 Mbps
up [13]. In addition, Telenor will launch Thor 7 in late
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 19
2014, which will provide broadband communications
(also for maritime applications) in Europe and the
northern areas (spot beams over the North Sea,
Norwegian Sea, Red Sea, Baltic Sea, the Persian Gulf
and the Mediterranean) [14]. However, the most
common geo-stationary satellites do not provide any
coverage in the Arctic regions; therefore an initiative
has been launched by Telenor and several partners
that will investigate the industry interest in launching
20 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

communications satellites with a north-south highly
elliptical orbit to provide Arctic coverage. Initiatives
are also underway to explore the use of mesh
networks that have already been developed and
tested for maritime use [15].
Benefits
The benefits to ship-owners of implementing a
condition monitoring strategy are related to cost
savings and the predictability of operations. Cost
savings are related to reductions in maintenance
needs such as inspections and repairs, decreased
costs due to failures and downtimes and unplanned
maintenance, lower insurance costs, and savings
due to improved equipment performance that may
lead to decreased fuel consumption. Predictability,
besides reducing the uncertainty around decisions,
is also a source of competitive advantage and can be
used in many business relations to attract charterers.
The accurate picture obtained of a vessel’s
current and future status also contributes towards
a higher awareness of system capabilities. This
allows preventive actions to be performed to
increase reliability and safety, and to ensure that
ship capabilities match operational requirements.
In addition, the increased knowledge and
documentation of a ship’s health status and
maintenance history will increase the second-hand
value of a well-maintained ship.
performance and risks. This also has a positive effect
on the crew competences, since onboard personnel
can be involved in a continuous learning process in
close collaboration with the onshore organization.
In this way, not only will the ship be maintained
effectively, but the competence and experience of
the crew will also be enhanced.
Component manufacturers can improve the quality
of components during the lifecycle by analysing
operational data and trying to minimize losses and
failures in relation to different operation profiles.
Components can be more easily targeted to specific
needs (e.g., Arctic, special purpose vessels) and
operations. Maintenance can be optimized based
on condition and suggestions regarding timing
of repairs, substitutions, etc. can be given to the
shipowner.
Potential sources of benefits that drive business value
within a structured approach to vessel maintainability
are outlined in Figure 12.

Moreover, with onshore support possible, part of

the operations can be delegated to specialized
personnel and systems that can keep track of
 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 21

Increased output Risk reduction

• Increased Asset utilization • Compliance to health and
safety regulations
• Improved capacity management
• Management of tolerable risk
• Aligned goals between
maintenance & operations • Audit trails for maintenance and
operation activities
• Alignment between maintenance
and part planning • Managed corporate standards

BUSINESS VALUE
Cost reduction Strategic positioning
• Effective maintenance craft • Better information to run the
utilization business

• Effective maintenance planning • Strong and flexible foundation

to support future growth
• Reduced working capital and
inventory requirements • Improved supply chain
integration
• Better supplier, procurement
and warranty management • Greater employee satisfaction

Figure 12.  Potential sources of benefits which drive business value within a structured approach to vessel maintainability.
22 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
THE WAY FORWARD
In 2030, the status of condition monitoring
technologies in shipping will be very different from
how it is today. As a reminder, it is worth considering
the development in aviation where, during the
course of 30 years (1970-2000), inspection, condition
monitoring and maintenance regimes have changed
completely. Today, aviation is far ahead of shipping
regarding maintenance technologies, and there is no
doubt that this is of benefit to airlines. In shipping we
can expect an accelerated development compared
with aviation, such that by the year 2030 shipping
may have caught up with aviation and, together
with large emerging industries like the wind turbine
industry, may be participating in pushing forward the
science of condition monitoring and maintenance.
However, there are several new developments that
are necessary to enable this future.
ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
Several technologies are currently emerging
that may be expected to enhance the field of
maintenance by making it cheaper, easier, less
invasive, and closer to maintenance-free.
Smart sensors
Smart sensors are sensors with integrated pre-
processing capabilities that deliver processed and
digitized information. This information can be more
easily incorporated in a system through a digital
interface, significantly reducing development costs
since the pre-processing of the signal does not
need to be done by the system developer. Smart
sensors can react to changes in their surrounding
environments or when a user injects a command.
When networked together, smart sensors can
automatically organize to form a reconfigurable
and collaborative network. In this way, a network of
smart sensors can achieve higher confidence for the
measured event characteristics while simultaneously
reducing the overall quantity of transmitted data.
Moreover, when connected through a wireless
medium, sensors can be more easily installed
and cabling can be avoided. Although the power
needs of sensors may be covered by using long
lasting batteries, energy harvesting devices that
convert ambient energy from vibrations, sunlight,
or temperature gradients to electricity are making
their appearance; these will allow the powering
of wireless sensors without the need for cabling
or batteries. Harsh environment sensing is also an
emerging sensor technology that makes use of new
materials technology, such as silicon carbide (SiC)
that is extremely resilient to high temperatures and
pressures. SiC is also among the hardest materials
known after diamond, thus allowing usage at
abrasive locations such as oil-well drill heads, engine
cylinder walls, and turbine blades.
Connectivity, Big data and Fast computing
Sensor systems will send logs of data onshore at a
rate that will depend on the criticality of operations
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 23
24 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
and the complexity of the onboard systems. This will
spur the development of structures and methods
for the collection, transmission, and handling of this
new “big data”. This will be achieved through a highly
developed and reliable ship to shore connectivity
link. Therefore, ship operators can control the
ship and its components from shore, possibly
through mobile devices. Distributed data storage
and computing architecture, as well as a powerful
information management system, will be in place,
and this will increase workforce communication,
competence sharing, benchmarking via the Internet,
quasi-instantaneous responses, and new types of
analyses. These analyses could be enhanced by
the deployment of new computing and processing
capabilities of sensor networks and their increased
Internet accessibility.
Autonomous and reconfigurable systems
Fast-forward a few decades, and tasks will gradually
be handed over to computers that make the
decisions regarding performing maintenance
and allocating resources. Systems will be semi-
autonomous in the sense that they will be able
to decide on maintenance needs with limited
inputs from a human operator. These systems
may be able to reconfigure themselves through
advanced sensors and actuator networks when the
requested operations compromise the condition
of components and, therefore, the induced risk of
failures.
THE STAGES OF IMPLEMENTATION
For ship-owners of today, it is important to consider
the stages of implementation of a highly advanced
condition monitoring system. Benefits will also come
in stages, depending on the level of commitment in
terms of corporate cultural changes and willingness
to invest in development and infrastructure.
Defining an effective diagnostics system
The first stage of implementation is to determine the
most critical failure modes of a ship system and to
equip the relevant components with sensors that can
detect related physical parameters. This information
is analysed by onboard computers that perform
diagnostics and determine the health state of the
component, and whether it should be inspected,
overhauled, or discarded. The direct benefits of this
first stage are the capability of preventing failures
and the reduction in costs and safety concerns
associated with the failures that are prevented.
Moving towards an effective prognostics systems
The second stage includes the use of prognostics
to determine the remaining useful life (RUL) of
components and to gain an understanding of
when maintenance should be performed and to
plan for that. Prognostics use statistical information
about failures or physical degradation models,
together with continuously measured parameters
that determine health state, to determine RUL. The
benefit of having access to this information is that
the reliability of the ship is estimated in real-time,
and actions can be taken if needed. The end result is
greater availability and lower maintenance costs.
Migrating to integrated, real time,
risk-based maintenance
At this stage, calendar-based and hard-time
maintenance will belong to the past and
condition monitoring based maintenance is in
place. Condition-based maintenance will be able
to address the correct timing and quantity of
maintenance for specific monitored components,
and this will be an enormous improvement on old
practices. As experience with such systems grow,
and the related mathematical knowledge of failure
processes develops, the accuracy of both diagnostic
and prognostic algorithms will improve and give
more accurate residual-life estimates. This will
allow further switching towards online, risk-based
maintenance, where maintenance is seen as the
set of actions that is used to maintain or reduce the
system risk level cost-effectively. Here, the difference
from the old view of risk-based methods lies in the
fact that these measures are evaluated real-time and
from actual operations, rather than being based on
recommendations and poor statistics.
This new perspective requires that the maintainability
of an asset is considered as early as in the design
phase. In fact, at this stage, models of ship systems
must be developed for future use in operations
and to become part of the decision support and
information management system of an enterprise.
One approach may be to create an integrated
framework for lifecycle design that includes
computer models for components and system
models that can accommodate changes measured
by sensors and the effects that these changes
have on interacting components. Hence, on both
a component and system level, the models will
include information about physical behaviour, failure
modes and failure propagation mechanisms, and the
characteristics and location of sensors. In addition,
the framework could include the maintenance and
 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 25

operations database, allowing for easy access to
these data from the modelling environment.
REAL-TIME RISK BASED APPROACHES
The overall objective of the maintenance process
is to increase the profitability of the operation
and to optimize the total lifecycle cost without
compromising safety or environmental issues. Risk
assessment integrates costs, reliability, safety, and
environmental issues, and therefore can be used as
a decision tool for real-time maintenance planning
when combined with real-time data from condition
monitoring systems. Maintenance planning that
is based on risk analysis minimizes the probability
of system failure and its consequences (related
to safety, economy, and environment), and helps
management in making the correct decisions
concerning investment in maintenance or related
fields. This will, in turn, result in better asset and
capital utilization.
In brief, the concept of real-time, risk-based
maintenance integrates the condition of an
individual component at the system level and uses
reliability and risk indicators evaluated in real-time
to prioritize maintenance actions on individual
components (Figure 13).
The systems perspective displayed on the bridge
With an effective condition monitoring system
the current and future health state is used in early
identification of failures through advanced analysis
algorithms, and maintenance actions can be

Operating system

Build a system reliability model

Evaluate Reliability of components Evaluate Reliability of the system

Components
Model of the system
Observations C1 Analyze C1
Component 1 Diagnostics Prognostics System function
(C1)

Observations CN Analyze CN C1 CN
Diagnostics Prognostics
Component N
(CN)

Evaluate criticality of components

Importance of
components

C1

Correct / Maintain
CN

Unreliability of components

Figure 13.  High level representation of a Risk-based condition based maintenance framework.
26 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
performed accordingly. This reduces the failure rate,
and thus increases safety and reliability. Because
failures, as well as avoided failures, are recorded
along with condition monitoring data, improved
reliability data of components and systems is
obtained, thus laying the grounds for improved
risk management with less uncertainty. In addition,
the system can give immediate alerts of impending
failures, such that the captain of the ship may shut
down equipment or return to shore to avoid a critical
situation or additional damage arising.
Using a hierarchical framework for aggregating
the health condition or reliability of components
into a health status of a sub-system will give an
instantaneous indication to the crew and managers
about potential failures and the effects these
will have on the ship reliability and performance
(Figure 14). The possibility of making informed
decisions about whether to continue a mission,
while balancing the reliability, performance, and
mission importance, can improve availability without
compromising safety.
Propulsion 1
Thruster 1
Engine 1
NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
In order to exploit the true benefits of the collection
and analysis of operational data, a new generation
of tools, methods, and systems needs to be adopted
by the shipping industry. The objective of such
systems is to combine empirical knowledge, based
on operational data, with system knowledge with
the aim of supporting the various stages of a vessel’s
lifecycle. These new methods and technologies shall
become one of the languages of the sector and
be integrated within the operational procedures
of the industry. These developments will require
new collaborative efforts between designers,
class societies, and operators to ensure that the
monitoring system is fit for purpose and that the
collected data conveys valuable information.
Ship Propulsion
Propulsion 2
Thruster 2
Engine 2
LNG Tank
Figure 14.  Integrated approach to
System condition monitoring.
 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 27

Onshore support sectors, as particularly demonstrated in the aviation

One of the first impacts on ship condition industry where a large proportion of aircraft jet
management from the adoption of the new engines are sold as a performance-based service.
technologies mentioned above is the possibility of
defining arrangements where the system integrators, Analytics and Information management
component manufacturers, or other service providers While system integrators and component
offer onshore support for diagnostics & prognostics, manufacturers could be involved in the aftermarket
and guidance in emergency situations. Nowadays, of the engineering system that they deliver, with
there are some original equipment manufacturers different levels of engagement, other players can
(OEMs) already providing this kind of service, where have a major role in combining data from different
remote control centres, managed by the OEMs sources and in providing solutions for the most
themselves, have a direct link with the ship and can effective maintainability of an asset. These players
suggest preventive or recovery actions to the crew will leverage on predictive analytics technology to
onboard. analyse data on multiple ship parts, components, and
systems, and make recommendations to optimize
In general, this kind of agreement allows the maintenance and operations. By breaking down the
competence of the crew to be improved, as they data silos of individual stakeholders and exploiting
are directly supported by experts onshore and can, the synergies of shared information streams, new
thus, be engaged in a learning process. Moreover, by opportunities may emerge.
enhancing the guidance of onshore-based experts
to the crew (e.g., by virtual spaces, vision-goggle), Verification, Certification and Assurance
there will be less need for global presence, travelling Finally, these new approaches for condition
to remote locations, and, thus, major cost savings management can facilitate relations with
can be achieved. Finally, diagnostic and prognostic classification societies and regulatory bodies, as
support offers a valid means to cut the costs of well as with charterers. New integrated systems for
spares procurement, due to larger lead times and showing compliance and ensuring customers that
overall improvements in resource allocation. a ship is fit for purpose can be defined based on
the collected data, thereby promoting transparency
Performance based arrangements and enhanced communication between the industry
A further possibility is the introduction of actors and, not least, society at large.
performance-based services. For component/system
manufacturers, this may mean a comprehensive
aftercare service in which the manufacturer performs
all maintenance tasks and guarantees a certain
level of performance of their product with a flat rate
price tag. Such a solution spreads the risk between
the manufacturer and its customers, and creates a
centrally administrated maintenance organization
for all similar products sold by the manufacturer. It
also allows the manufacturer to keep full control of
their products, and creates a strong incentive for
continuous improvements in product reliability, since
substandard performance will have a direct negative
impact on the manufacturer. Also, by reducing
technical risk and increasing the level of servitization,
it can be considered a route by which manufacturers
achieve higher long-term profit margins. For
customers, the benefits include greater predictability
of their assets and lower total cost of ownership.

Such services are most widely applied in the defence

sector, and are considered useful for complex and
large-scale projects. However, this approach is also
becoming more prevalent in the private and public
28 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have reviewed the main advances
in the field of condition monitoring, with particular
focus on developments in the air transportation
industry as compared with the shipping industry.
The main trends, achievements, possibilities,
and challenges have been discussed, along
with potential approaches to overcoming the
barriers to implementation. It has been noted that
developments in the field of maintenance have been
driven by an increasing recognition of the role of
maintenance in asset management and business
performance. In fact, maintenance is currently
recognized as affecting all aspects of business
effectiveness and risk - safety, environmental
integrity, energy efficiency, product quality, and
customer service, not just availability and cost.
Maintenance is considered to be a pillar of the value
generation activities of those businesses that make
use of engineering systems (physical and software
assets) to generate value for customers.
In order for the shipping industry to attain levels of
development similar to those achieved in the air
transportation industry, we advocate the necessity
of establishing a systematic approach for the
deployment of condition monitoring technologies
that span from the design phase to the operational
phase of the ship lifecycle.
Moreover, the establishment of systematic
approaches for the collection and analysis of data
may lead to major improvements regarding how
operations are run and systems are maintained.
It seems likely that during the next decade the
shipping industry will increasingly look to the air
transportation industry, which has developed a
number of systems to improve performance. These
trends may push the shipping industry towards
becoming data-centric and based on extended value
chains, with consequent shared risks, costs, revenues,
and competencies.
Technological development plays a very important
role as an enabler of the commercial sector.
Generally, technological development is expected
to contribute towards reducing costs and increasing
the safety and welfare of operators. However, it may
also result in higher lifecycle costs due to increased
performance requirements, greater systems
complexity, and more requirements for competence
and training. Therefore, managing the risk of
introducing new technologies will remain critical
in the future in order to be able to provide cost
reductions while enhancing safety and sustainability
performances.
The development of such systems will not be
limited by technology. Rather, the industry will have
to weigh the benefits of more advanced systems,
which include reduced costs, increased safety
and improved vessel condition, against the large
investments required for change management.
Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 29
30 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry
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Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry 31
32 Beyond condition monitoring in the maritime industry

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